Of Paper and Metals. East African Societies, Colonialism and the Materiality of Money

The creation of a new currency for the African colonies was driven by various economic motivations and was also a key component of the general European “civilizing” process. However, early European attempts to replace pre-existing African currencies were often a complete failure. A lack of understanding of existing African monetary practices and a limited knowledge of local conditions – such as the bad effect that the tropical climate had on aluminium coins or paper notes – obliged colonial authorities to continuously change the design and material of their currency. At the same time, African societies often resisted colonial currencies, either by rejecting them or by transforming them to make them suitable for local monetary practices. These diverse acts of resistance testify to the limited reach of the colonial state and can provide a vantage point to look at how African societies responded to the imposition of colonial rule. This article focuses on Uganda and Kenya during the early colonial period and explores the innovations introduced by the British to adapt colonial currencies to the ways in which African societies handled, stored, and counted money. It will show how the currency system introduced by the colonial powers was subject to many adaptations and negotiations, in which money materialities had a central role. A role, it is suggested, that is in itself revealing about largescale aspects of the colonial encounter.